The Quest for Winning Didn’t Satisfy Race Car Driver

“Only thing I wanted to do was race and I wanted to win,” says Brad McKenzie. “And that was who we was. We was racers and we wanted to win.”

Growing up in Swainsboro, Georgia, Brad McKenzie couldn’t wait to race on the dirt track. It was in his blood. “It was just a family of racers. We grew up in the back of a truck out here at the racetrack, me and my brother,” says Brad. “That’s all we knew. And, you know, it’s kind of an expectation, almost like, you know, you’re gonna race. You know? And no one said that to us. It’s kinda like, well, you’re around it every weekend, it’s your life.”

Watching his dad and other relatives take their share of checkered flags over the years, Brad hoped that when his time came he’d live up to the family name. “I wanted to be good enough. Again, being raised in a family where the bar or the expectation was winning. Number one, not two, not three, not ten, but one,” says Brad. "That’s the expectation for us. And living up to be number one. To be good enough.”

Then, entering his first race at 21, Brad finally got the chance to prove himself. “And so when I got in that racecar, the first night I can remember thinking, ‘I need to win,’” says Brad.

“I led the whole race and won that race. And I can remember getting out of the car and seeing my dad smile, and I just—I could see the pride ‘cause I’ve always wanted to make my dad proud,” says Brad. “And I felt like, ‘You know what, I done—I done right.’”

In the many races that followed, however, the victory laps were few and far between. In Brad’s mind, he was a failure. “The competition’s just—it was so tough. It wasn’t easy for me,” says Brad.

That didn’t stop him from hitting the track most weekends throughout college and after he started working as a surveyor. Still, his trips to victory lane were elusive, as were his hopes of ever being good enough.

“Well, I went home some nights crying. I did. Now, my dad didn’t set that on me, and my mom and my family,” says Brad. They never would have said, ‘Oh, you’ve gotta win.’ You know, but there was a certain expectation from people that ‘Hey, you know, he ought to be winning, you know, what’s--what’s the deal?’” says Brad.

Then came the heavy drinking. Brad, who had been a social drinker, started drinking every day, sometimes to the point of passing out. Then in 2008, at age 25, Brad got into a drunken brawl, earning himself a night in jail.

“And I sat there all night long. I was begging somebody to let me out, but they didn’t,” says Brad. “And you know what, it got my attention. And I realized, you know, I had a problem.”

Even then, Brad continued to drink heavily, unable to quit on his own. Then one night about 6 months later, while watching television, he came across Pat Robertson on The 700 Club.

“And he was saying these things about Jesus and praying these prayers about being saved, you know. I don’t know, it just stuck to me,” says Brad.

Now watching the show every night, Brad knew he needed Jesus. Yet, something was holding him back. “Maybe I just didn’t think that uh, maybe I didn’t think I was good enough, I don’t know what it was,” says Brad. “Maybe I didn’t think God could save me. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Little more than a month later, he and his fiancée, Jessica, were at a church service when the preacher invited people to come forward and accept Jesus as their savior. Brad was still reluctant.

“I just wouldn’t come,” says Brad. “Pride, you know. It was just I-I wouldn’t go. And at the very end of the service, the preacher prayed and said, ‘Lord, there’s one in the room who knows he’s not right with you, he’s already told me he’s not right. He wouldn’t come. God would you—tonight will you deal with him and would you not let him get a wink of sleep until he gets right,’” says Brad.

Later that night...“I remember setting my alarm and thinking, ‘I ain’t going to sleep,’” says Brad. “And I doze right off. Like I had no problem, went right to sleep. And then my alarm goes off, so I jump up. And realized it’s not even, just a little after midnight. I’m thinking, ‘Well, wait a minute. This is—I know I set my clock,’” says Brad.

Brad reset the alarm and went back to sleep. Then, the alarm went off again not once but twice that night, a mystery Brad couldn’t explain.

“That blew my mind,” says Brad. “And I said, ‘You know what, God? I know this is you calling me. I know it is. And I prayed a prayer, ‘Lord, save me, I know I’m a sinner’ prayer. I didn’t know what I was saying. I said, ‘Lord, I accept Jesus.’ And I remember that man on that 700 Club and I said, ‘You know what?’ I prayed as close as I could remember him praying,” says Brad.

Brad says after that night his life was never the same. For starters, he no longer needed alcohol to ease his mind. “I had peace. A peace that I didn’t know I needed, honestly,” says Brad. “God had been dealing with me over the last couple of weeks, at that time, and I needed peace to know that I was right with God.”

And along with peace came a realization: “I was enough. I was good enough. That’s-that’s what I think I needed to know,” says Brad. “I can’t be good enough without Jesus. Like with Him, the Bible says I get the victory.”

A few months later, Brad and Jessica married, and today they have two children. Brad eventually stopped racing and has since gone into ministry. In 2019 Brad founded Jesus Saves Church in his hometown.

You can still find him at the racetrack nowadays, cheering on his brother and sharing the good news of Jesus Christ to the racing community. “The Bible says that ‘God so loved the world.’ It didn’t say, ‘He loved those who were the best at what they done.’ God loves everybody. I already know I’ve got the victory, I’m good enough, because He’s good enough,” says Brad.